Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Blog Tour: The Culling by Ramona Finn

In a solar system where The Authority decides who lives and who
dies, only one of their own assassins can stop them.

Glade Io is a trained killer. Marked at a young age as an
individual with violent tendencies, she was taken from her family and groomed
to be a Datapoint, a biotech-enabled analyst who carries out the Culling. She
is meant to identify and destroy any potential threats to the human colonies.
But when she’s kidnapped by rogue colonists known as the Ferrymen, everything
Glade thinks she knows about the colonies, and The Authority that runs them,
collapses into doubt.

Pulled between two opposing sides, and with her family’s lives
hanging in the balance, Glade is unsure of who to trust—and time is running
out.

But
if you had to play it, like I did right now, so much better to be the hunter
than the hunted.

I
cracked my knuckles in front of me as I stepped into the simulator, and the
door slammed behind me. I was instantly plunged into darkness – a blunt
darkness, as can only happen indoors. Two points of light opened up in front of
me, one on the left and one on the right.

I
bared my teeth in a feral grin as my eyes bounced from one point of light to
the other. They were throwing two colonies at me at once. I waited, tense and
ready, as both points of light started spiraling open, focusing. They were
forming not just into images, but into my new reality.

Within
seconds, I was straddling the line between two worlds. I could see the images
with my eyes, but when I closed them, I could see the images projected across
my brain, as well. The computer implanted in my arm and head was cool like
that. There was almost nothing I couldn’t do with it.

I
scanned the two landscapes on either side of me. Glacially icy on one side,
offering all the blues and grays of an icy planet. And on the other side, the
black sky met the umber sand of a red planet. I looked back and forth between
them. Two colonies at once. I knew it was just a simulation, but still, a bead
of sweat rolled down my back as I planted my feet on the floor of the
simulator.

Come
out, come out, little citizens.

Using
my computer, my integrated tech, I zoomed in on the icy landscape first. I felt
the frigid wind, the brisk scent of ozone filling my nostrils, and soon I was
close enough to see the roofs of dwellings. And yup. There the people were. I
ignored the heavy furs that covered all but their eyes. I ignored their varying
heights and weights. I ignored the way some of them held hands or rode on one
another’s backs. I ignored the laughter that rang out from a group of citizens
who had to be just about my age. I ignored the familiar admonishing tone of a
mother at her wit’s end. The only thing I saw were the reddish glows that
emanated from each person’s brainwaves.

The
integrated tech computer that had been implanted when I’d been chosen for this
job was designed to detect brain patterns. The computer in my brain could see
other people’s brainwaves, and it presented the information in a way that
allowed my eyes to see it, too. It had taken a long time to get used to it. But
now it was almost like second nature. I let the reddish blurs around each
person’s head remain just that – blurry.

Shifting
my attention to the red planet now, I gave my eyes a second to adjust from the
blinding white of the ice planet to the burnished, sunburned bake of the second
colony. The black sky was a rich dark, the kind of black that had depth. With
the Milky Way splashed across the skyroof of the red planet, I gave my eyes a
second to adjust as my tech zoomed in on the colony, the red planet rushing
past in my periphery. Soon we were there. The thick canvas tents that the
citizens used as dwellings flapped in the constant, stinging wind. Each person
wore white garments to reflect heat, but they were all dyed a deep, dusty pink
from the red sand being flung in every direction.

This
was a busier colony than the ice planet. People bustled past one another,
balancing baskets of wares on their heads. The streets were narrow and craggy,
lined with red rock walls that gave way to the canvas dwellings that stood
every ten feet or so. So little of this planet was hospitable that the people
had to live on top of one another like bees in a hive. The simulation raced me
down one twisting street and to the next, so that I was coasting past grannies
in doorways who were sorting seeds into one basket or another. Past children
huddled around a game of skipping rocks on the ground. Past a ratty dog,
everything but his eyes covered in red grit.

And
then I landed in the main square. A place I’d only seen photographs of in the
past.

People
haggled over prices in the canvas booths that lined the square. Eggs and bread
were traded and bartered. A group of unwatched children ran screaming from one
end of the square to the other, adults scowling after them. A line of people
800 feet long wrapped around the square. Everyone held empty chalices. It was
the line for water. A group of citizens shouted over one another as they
crowded around a small wooden platform where an ox stood. The animal’s age was
shown in its milky eyes and swollen joints, but still, the farmers shouted and
scrapped for the auctioneer’s attention. On a planet as hard to farm as this
one, any help was highly sought after.

I
pulled my attention from the details of the two worlds and back to the task at
hand. This wasn’t a sightseeing simulation. I was a trained Datapoint. This was
my job.

This
was a Culling.

Using
every bit of training that had been pounded into me over the last two years, I
began to block out all of the sensory details of the two colonies on either
side of me. The slate gray clouds and the pale icy sun melted away on my left.
On my right, the baked red became nothing more than a neutral background. Like
I had a hand gripping a knob on a radio, I guided my integrated tech into
turning the volume down. The noises of the market on one side muted, and the
noises of the children playing on the other side did the same.

Soon,
all I was left with were the citizens and the halos of red around their heads.
I brought each red blur even further into focus. Starting with one alone and
then moving to each citizen individually, I read their brainwaves with
practiced ease.

My
integrated technology and my brain worked in perfect, synchronized tandem as I
identified the citizens I was looking for. In the simulation, they were
scattered about, as they’d be in their worlds. But in my mind’s eye, it was as
if all of the citizens were standing neatly in a line before me. Using my
technology to organize them, I saw about a quarter of the citizens stepping
forward. These were the ones I was about to cull. The ones with brainwaves
indicating violence and aggression. The ones with the capacity to commit
murder. The ones who were inclined to bring down pain on the citizens around
them.

About the Author

Ramona Finn writes about
courageous characters who fight to live in broken, dystopian worlds. She
believes a person's true characters is often revealed in times of crisis, and
there is no greater crisis than the worlds that she drops her characters
into!

She grew up sitting
cross-legged on her town's library floor--completely engrossed in science
fiction books. It was always the futuristic world or the
universe-on-the-brink-of-extinction plotlines that drew her in, but it was the
brave characters who chose to fight back that kept her turning the pages.

Her books create deep,
intricate worlds with bold characters determined to fight for their survival in
their dystopian worlds--with a little help from their friends. And, of course,
romance is never out of the question ;)

CULL 3 FRIENDS & WIN - To celebrate the release of 'The
Culling'. I'm giving away a $50 giftcard!
My protagonist Glade Io is a trained killer. Groomed as a Datapoint, a
biotech-enabled analyst, she's sent into the colonies to execute the
once-every-decade Culling—those deemed dangerous to the Authority's perfect
world are killed. She is ruthless—and I need you to be ruthless too. Cull 3 of
your friends to win. Who could you cull? Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/ramonafinnbooks/